Month: February 2016

THE PONTYPOOL CONDITION?

A few months ago I found a surprise gem on Netflix: Pontypool. It’s a good horror movie from 2008 directed by Bruce McDonald and written by Tony Burgess, based on his novel Pontypool Changes Everything.. the movie follows a few radio hosts in a small town where a strange virus begins robbing people of their ability to talk..

I thought of Pontypool today when I saw a very real and frightening headline about a syndrome that is doing the same thing as the unseen force in the horror movie: Robbing people not of memories but their ability to talk. Period..

How scary reality can be.

Read this from the Associated Press on the virus, being reported globally:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A mysterious brain disorder can be confused with early Alzheimer’s disease although it isn’t robbing patients of their memories but of the words to talk about them.

It’s called primary progressive aphasia, and researchers said Sunday they’re finding better ways to diagnose the little-known syndrome. That will help people whose thoughts are lucid but who are verbally locked in to get the right kind of care.

“I’m using a speech device to talk to you,” Robert Voogt of Virginia Beach, Virginia, said by playing a recording from a phone-sized assistive device at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “I have trouble speaking, but I can understand you.”

Even many doctors know little about this rare kind of aphasia, abbreviated PPA, but raising awareness is key to improve care — and because a new study is underway to try to slow the disease by electrically stimulating the affected brain region.

The virus wasn’t discovered until the 1980s. Obviously it has been around for time and studying is being done..

More from the AP;

Now 66, Voogt was diagnosed 10 years ago, with a form of PPA that makes him unable to say words even though he can understand and type them via email, text or his assistive device. He owns a brain-injury rehabilitation center, and knew how to track down a specialist for diagnosis when he first had trouble retrieving words.

Sunday, Voogt patiently answered Hillis’ questions by typing into a device called the MiniTalk, or calling up verbal phrases he’d pre-programmed into it. Asked to say “dog,” Voogt forced out only a garble. But asked what cowboys ride, he typed horses and the device “said” the word.

His form of PPA also impacts grammar so that he has difficulty forming full sentences, Hillis said. Asked to write that’s “it’s a cold day in Washington,” Voogt typed a minute or two and the device’s recorder emitted “cold Washington D.C.”

Voogt typed that he started relying on the device in 2012, but lives independently and travels internationally. But asked how difficult the loss of language is to live with, he typed out a pretty bad rating — 70 percent

Me calling this this Pontypool condition is not meant to be done to mock .. This is actually as disturbing and tragic as the plot of a horror flick..

A brain scan with the condition: 

Pontypool in action

I am going to add my voice to the countless others already clamoring about King Henry VIII and his famous turkey leg painting that, apparently on this timeline, never was..

A little explanation is in order.

I have written countless times about ‘time sips’ and the Mandela Effect here, here, and here, just to name a few.

The full conundrum can be found on the Mandela Effect website–this website may also spark interest that you will keep reading the rest. Basically, countless people remember seeing this painting with King Henry holding up a giant leg of fowl.. And countless people become shaken when they are realized to be wrong about that very fact. There is no such painting. Nothing in pop culture that resembles the memory we all have.. and nothing which can answer the reason why that very memory includes the same exact details..

I have been searching, for about a year, for something to disprove my proof of the Mandela Effect: This very painting. This entire King Henry issue hit me much harder than anything involving the Berenstain Bears, or even Nelson Mandella himself. As a matter of fact, I always knew Mandella to be alive. At least when I started paying attention to national and foreign news in my early teens in the 1990s..

My son Ayden, age 5 soon, told me that when he was “a kid,” the ‘green light’ was on ‘top of the red light’. That made me laugh.. then a few other events occurred and my personal world was rocked, and figured that my son, saying how the red light changed from his own 1 year old memory, had a time slip.

That is how I arrived to the whole Mandela effect to begin with, along with Starfire Tor on Art Bell and callers to his program saying that they believed Mandela died in prison.

Now back to the subject at hand, or in hand, the turkey leg.
I recall exactly what others recall.. a painting. An opulent setting. The grand feast in front of Henry, his eyes were heavy and looking somewhat sad. The turkeyish leg in his right hand, so on the left hand side of the painting. And I also vaguely recall somewhat of a window setting behind him, maybe.

The memories are so much the same as others.
And get this.. I recall it being discussed in my 4th or 5th grade social studies class, with all of the kids looking at the painting and chuckling. This would have been in the late 1980s…

Last year during a family breakfast at Friendlys, I used the crayons that my son was given to color to create this quit little picture of what I remembered, so I can show my wife in further detail:

The waitress showed a bit of interest, so I asked her if she recalls that painting with King Henry VIII eating a turkey leg. She chuckled, and said “of course I do, that looks just like it.”
Indeed it does..

So it goes back to the idea that we all saw the same thing, or series of things, which formed a similar image in our minds.
but why so exact.. Could we all have been this tricked? This mind-warped? Could the same joke thought of Henry eating a giant feast coupled with famous paintings be this able to fool the brain?
Why so many pop culture references to a painting that does not exist..
Why does every single person I talk to say they saw this painting?
And why is it gone?
Disturbing to say the least.

Ending with this quote may be the best:

“I love Bill Clinton. I think we should make him king. I’m talking the red robe, the turkey leg – everything.”  Tim McGraw on Bill Clinton in 2014. I wonder if he had his Mandlla Effect hit him yet?

The comedian Sinbad was not in a movie where he played a genie. I am sorry to say.. A few people I talked to remember him fondly being in the movie Shazaam. It came out around the same time as Kazaam with Shaq.

And all of that is plain wrong.

Shazaam did not exist. Shaq did play a genie in a tremendously unmemorable and awful movie. But Sinbad did not..

This is the latest ‘glitch in the matrix’ that even got me.
I recall this myself. I remember him in the outfit. I don’t quite remember the name of the film as some others do, but I am very clear on my memory of him being in an awful un-funny movie when I was younger.

All of this is fodder for crowds of people who have a new-found appreciation of the Mandela Effect. Every day.

For those yet unaware, or those who do not quite know the label to call their strange memory lapses or sudden shocks to learn that reality is different from what they thought, it is called the Mandela Effect. There are people–and lots of them including Stafire Tor on an old Art Bell show that somewhat started all of this–that believed Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s. They recall his funeral. They remember the news headlines and nightly news reporting. And they were shocked that he rose to the presidency of South Africa in the 90s. Because, to them, he was long dead. 

The time traveler himself!? Mandela!?
There are many other ‘glitches’ that so often occur since. 
You may know of the famous debate: Berenstein Bears or Berenstain? You can self-Google and medicate if you want to be in that debate. 

There are countless others piling up on Reddit and other forums. People in large numbers mis-remember things. And somewhat creepy: They remember the same mistaken memory. As though a timeline shift occurred.. 

I have had personal oddities relative to this subject. Very personal ones that occurred when my father almost died in intensive care in 2013–right around the same exact week that Nelson Mandela died (for the second or first time depending on your memory).. 

After a bit of time, you grow used to your memories becoming defunct as timelines alter. I have at least .. 

Including last night, when I found out that Sinbad did not appear in the movie dressed like I remember him appearing in a movie. 

I asked someone younger in my family if she remembers. Her response? “Who is Sinbad?”

The timeline for him, at least, has shifted…

A little ghost story–one that hits a bit closer to home than anything else I have written.

Tonight, my wife and I took my son Ayden to a birthday party for a classmate at the Ashland Pennsylvania ELKS–sorry for the bad press (or good depending on your point of view) I am giving them on this matter..

The party was fine. It took place in the basement level bowling alley. Kids had a blast.. the cake was fine. And the pizza was as it should be.

There was one moment, though.. One strange event.

You see, the bathroom in the basement is unisex. So both genders shared their turns using it.. At one point, my son wanted to wash his hands. We made him wait because all three of us heard people in there. We figured it would be proper and kind to allow them to finish their business before barging in.

The seconds turned into minutes.. no one was coming out. So I decided to go in.. 
No one..
no one was there.
Not a soul.

The bathroom was empty and quiet. The voices we heard and shadows we saw–all there of us–were gone. Instead remaining were just two urinals and a toilet.

My son had the most amazing reaction of all. He immediately said “we just saw a ghost!” Almost excitedly as a matter of fact. 

My wife and I were left pondering a few things. We attempted scientific logic. We tried making excuses for the voices we heard. We wanted to explain the shadows. And funny, both my wife and I independently agreed: We heard and saw three people. We just both agreed on that. Three people.

This is not the first time something unexplained happened to us. I saw things before. I think we all have. We just need to take a step back and consider the times we do. But the funny thing is the acceptance my son had to the entire episode. He sort of, well, just figured he took part in some paranormal event. And does not even know why..

And perhaps that memory will stick. The shadows at the Elks. Almost the same as it was for my at the age of 5 seeing people in the choir of the former St. Ignatius in Centralia, along with hearing whispers come from the confessional ni the church at night.

But Ayden was fine with it all….He went on with life and ate cake, enjoyed bowling, and had a blast.

I did a few Google searches tonight. Nothing found. I did locate a few strange sites about ghosts of Ashland, PA.. but nothing specific about this location. 

We do know what we saw. We agree on what we saw. And heard. Shadows along the wall.. voices echoing in the room. No one there and not a trace of humans within.

It was an interesting moment.

And quite possibly my son’s first paranormal event..

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLHKA9EGEzc?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque]

Thinking about an old friend who lost his life to cancer last year. Every now and then his face pops up in my mind.. and his favorite song, ROCK AND ROLL HEAVEN, does as well..

I get comforted by this song.
But.. what does not comfort me is the lack of messages from beyond the grave. He always said he may try to send me one from the great beyond.
Perhaps that violates the rules of space and time. Or .. space and time do not exist.

I just don’t know this cold, dark, and snowy Saturday night in February. I just don’t know.

Developing now..

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead of apparent natural causes Saturday on a luxury resort in West Texas, federal officials said.

Scalia, 79, was a guest at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, a resort in the Big Bend region south of Marfa.

Never bites the hand that scratches you.

Never scratch the hands that bites.